


Blow the whistle baby (all aboard)

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13579872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: “Keep the stupid to a minimum,” her uncle would grouch,  and Charlie had always assumed he was talking about the mission.  One kiss from the man she's supposed to hate and she suddenly understands what Miles was trying to warn her about.  She can't shove it away anymore, or even remember when it all started - all she knows is that he's still Monroe and she's still Charlie Matheson, and this can't happen.  But it is.  Full steam ahead, maximum stupid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romeokijai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romeokijai/gifts).



> This is set in the canon Revo-verse, in the months after the Season Two finale. Bass and Charlie are soldiering it up, Miles has gone back to Willoughby to be schmoopy with Rachel. Stoke that engine, baby :D
> 
> A belated birthday present for Romeo. Chapter Two isn't far away, I promise!

 The briefing is the usual: long, useless, and achingly boring. Charlie is amazed the newly reinvested General Asshole managed to get through it without decapitating anyone, but he's smiling and nodding and even more full of himself than he usually is. Which is a _lot_ , she bitches, gritting her teeth as he makes small talk and shakes hands with all and sundry as the briefing comes to a close.

She refuses to think about why he's so goddamn chirpy – definitely nothing to do with her, or last night, and no, she is _never_ thinking about that, ever again. Instead, she clings to how fucking repellent his great man act is, how deluded they all are, and who the hell thought it was a good idea to put a psychopath in charge of the continent's biggest army.

She's managed to whip herself into an outraged fervour by the time Blanchard and his underlings file out, leaving the two of them alone.

“Well, lieutenant?”

That makes it easier too. Professionalism she can manage. Detached and objective is exactly what she needs to get through her day and when it doesn't work – that's when she whips up all the old hatreds. Bad blood. Water under the bridge, mostly, but … not today.

Today she needs to remember exactly who he is, and who she is, and what's happened between them. Otherwise all the other memories will come rushing back, and … no. Just no.

Charlie clears her throat and tries to say something useful. She's his pet Matheson, after all.

“Wasn't a fan of the risk analysis. Without the intel, it means nothing,” she says curtly. They've had this discussion before, and she's asked him to put her back in the field more than once. He couldn't spare her, he said. Plus, he wouldn't let …

It wasn't the first time she had interrupted him on that topic. She doesn't need to be reminded how many times he's saved her life now, or forced to think about why. It's seductive enough, how much he values her counsel.

More than once Charlie has told herself it's just because he was doing this without Miles, and she was just a poor substitute. Then she'd mentioned it, and Monroe had thrown his head back to laugh.

“Miles? Talk about Dumb and Dumber, Charlie. You and I work ten times better than Miles and I ever did – you're as good at the tactical shit, but you've got something he doesn't.”

Just when she was expecting him to say something she'd have to hit him for, Monroe astonished her.

“You've got a heart, kid. You consider all the angles, just like Miles, but then you think of outcomes other than just the objective. The damage we might do.”

He'd looked away then, but she'd already seen the vulnerability he liked to mask. The badass, broken inside. She was pretty sure she was the only person allowed to see that guy, and it terrified her sometimes.

She hadn't signed on to be Monroe's conscience.

“Keep an eye, that's all,” Miles had said, and objectively, she knew someone had to, what with the track record of systematic torture and several attempts at mass annihilation.

He'd been a sick, sick puppy, Charlie reminds herself as she watches Monroe slump into the oversized chair behind the giant walnut desk. He looks tired, and before she can stop herself, Charlie wonders just how much sleep he got last night.

More than her? Tossing and turning until succumbing to the most vivid of dreams, all breathless moans and entwined flesh?

“Lieutenant? Charlie?”

She has to swallow to wet her dry mouth, and pray she's not blushing. Maybe they should just talk about it, dismiss it as a freak occurrence necessitated by circumstance and nothing more than that, and never have to think about it again. File it away with that look she catches on his face sometimes, paternal regard abandoned for something more carnal. As if he wants to sink his fingers into her hair and tug her head back and lick his way into her mouth, the way he did last night.

Or, you know.

Maybe it was her that did that. She's been trying to forget the details.

“Uh. Briefing. We didn't mention Fitch's head goon is in town.”

The question in his eyes melts into pure fire.

“No. I want to keep that to myself for a while. California is a problem we have to … tease out gently,” Monroe says, eyes steady on her own. Fuck.

Dad, Danny, Maggie, Nora, whatever he did to Mom … even the names of her dead can't seem to stop her skin prickling with the memory of his touch. Admiration was one thing, but all that naked blue want – it fries her brain, leaves her babbling helplessly. He didn't, he couldn't – she would never. Impossible to think she might even _want_ to.

Liar, liar, you nearly set Murphy's bar on fire.

Honesty will not fucking help here, she reminds herself. Months ago, she'd had to cede that he was pretty to watch, a supreme warrior who stirred something in the most primitive part of her brain. Basic attraction between two mismatched individuals - it was one more thing she had to manage, this ridiculous little lust. As easily dealt with as their choked supply lines and the fact she needed new boots.

It was the world's most exhausting lie, and last night she'd tripped over it, and fallen hard.

 _Fuck_ last night.

They'd gone into the bar incognito, having heard the rumour that some guy was making a big fuss of having links with California and the continent's remaining despot, Alonzo Fitch. They hadn't expected the intel to be worth a dime, but then Monroe had casually grabbed her hand to tug her into the booth in the corner.

“Fitch's head of secret police,” he'd hissed into her ear, then something else she completely missed. Because his breath was hot against the sensitive skin, and he was looming over her, giving the room his back, trapping her against the wall.

Somewhere, she can hear a whistle, the 2200 steaming out of town. She can hear Miles laughing, and her own yell of triumph. Clearly, something had snapped in her brain. Because Monroe had used himself to shield them from prying eyes, and there was no need for Charlie to lift her face like that. There was a stark question in his eyes as he closed the gap, a yawning minute where they could still have pretended.  Found an excuse about wanting to make the cover look good, or some such bullshit.

Instead she opened her mouth, and their lips met slowly, then hungrily as his tongue stroked hers, and suddenly, suddenly … it was this, she remembers thinking. This was what Miles had been trying to warn her against. Keep the stupid to a minimum, he would grouch, and look over to Monroe, and get the finger in response.

Or she would groan, and roll her eyes, but end up promising to be careful anyway.

Had he known, her uncle? Was this what he meant all along?

Charlie is betting yes, because it was all kinds of stupid, that kiss. Stupid good. Stupid hot.

Stupid-making, she had realised as she found herself dragging in a much-needed breath, then chasing his lips once more. She'd stop soon, she had promised herself over and over. Just one more taste.

One more taste and then another, ignoring that little voice that kept on asking what the hell she was doing. Colossally bad soldiering, it had scolded. Probably professional suicide, and that (holy hell, _so_ good) didn't even take into account the fact this was _Monroe_. Dad, Danny, Maggie, Nora … her litany failed to burn away the fact it was Monroe, ravaging her mouth. Monroe, urging her into his lap, covering her face in kisses as his hands kneaded her ass, then slid round to tickle at the strip of bare skin above her leather pants.

She wanted to beg him to unlace them, but she'd been mute with pleasure, writhing with sensation, hips surging forward to trap his throbbing cock deep between her thighs. Pressing her breasts into his chest until they were both achingly aware of the hard little nipples begging for his attention.  His hands had skated upwards, tracing every rib, then stopping to shape the fullness of her breasts until they threatened to leap out of the peasant shirt she was wearing.  She dropped her head back, despairing, Monroe's tortured groan telling her how much he liked the view, even as his touch stayed relatively chaste.

“Please,” she'd sobbed, and their eyes had locked again and whatever he'd seen in hers – he'd used his fingernails, scraping them back and forth over the obstinate little buds, making her pitch and buck until she's shamelessly grinding on him, right there in that booth in the back of Murphy's bar.  She'd come, too, her teeth sinking into his shoulder as her body shook and convulsed.  

“That's it, baby.  That's it,” he growled in her ear, then let her snuggle into him for a few glorious minutes before hauling her upright to hustle them out the back door. They'd stopped a moment, pressed together in the shadows there, trying to regain their senses before they made their next move. She wanted to drop to her knees, Charlie remembers thinking. Wanted to fill her mouth with him, and watch his face as he came. It seemed only fair.

“You better go,” he'd rasped, right at the moment Charlie realised she would have done anything, said anything, spilled her very last secret just to have him touch her again.

(Willoughby, just before she'd headed out to Las Vegas with Connor and Monroe. “Hey,” Miles had barked.. “Remember my rule.”

Charlie had rolled her eyes, even as it warmed her heart. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“Keep the stupid to a minimum,” Bass had chorused, and – had he really been looking at her like that, even back then? Is that when this started? Or had it been before that, trussed up in the swimming pool together? Surely that had been it, because – not Philadelphia. Please not Philadelphia.

Less than three years ago, she'd been gobsmacked to discover that her own personal bogeyman was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. But the betrayal didn't set in until she'd jumped in front of his gun, something awful and intimate leaping between them as she stared him down. Her heart had threatened to slam its way out of her chest, and her knees were wobbly, but even the innocent she had been then knew it wasn't just shock.

She might have refused to put a name on it, certainly denied it could ever happen, but that didn't mean she didn't recognise arousal when it raked its claws down her back.)

Turns out, she's been stupid for way longer than she thought.

Not that it matters. Doesn't even matter what happened last night, because it means nothing and nothing was going to come of it. Even if the way he's looking at her right now, just knowing she's remembering the way he touched her, yet still willing to back off …. that shouldn't mean anything, him being decent for once.

Shouldn't, but she can't deny it does.

Or maybe he just knows her that goddamn well, knows how contrary she gets, knows that putting it out there, and letting her decide … fuck you, Monroe. And fuck me for being so fucked up you seem to be the only man I can want.

“It's a problem alright,” she says sharply, and forces her feet to the door. He drags in a breath behind her, but doesn't sigh. Won't let himself, she knows.

Charlie stops, aching. Reaches out slowly, rests her hand on the doorknob. Then finds herself throwing home the lock. She's not trying to hide what she's done, she tells herself as she clears her throat. She's just … finishing the conversation.

“We need to find out what they're doing here. If Fitch has his spymaster sniffing around out here, you've got to assume it's something big. Was he even trying to hide?”

“Don't think so,” Monroe replies from behind her, relaxing back into the big chair as she turns around. “Didn't even think of that. I may have … overreacted.”

It might even be an apology, but Charlie ignores _that_ minefield to focus on the problem. “I don't have enough assets in the field over there to give me any real idea of what his plans might be. I'll deploy a team to the border towns and see if we can't get an operative or two to figure out exactly what Fitch is up to. We can't invade California outright.”

Monroe looks as if he wants to re-evaluate that assumption.  She has to nip that in the bud right fucking away.

“Stupid to a minimum, remember?”

He laughs out loud and cedes the point with a flourish. “No invading California, then.”

It would be so much easier to hate him if he wasn't so delighted with her. Admiring. The smile twitching at the corner of his mouth fades away as their gazes catch, and ignite.

Stop, Charlie orders her disobedient legs as they take a step towards him. But then, she reconsiders. Deny it all she likes, but this one's left the station. Why be a passenger when you can steal the goddamn train?

She sidles up to his desk, stepping in behind it, then boosting herself up onto the well-polished surface to sit. He'd warned her against it once.

“Man can only think of one thing when he's got a pretty girl sitting on his desk, lieutenant. Get your ass off unless you want me to break a few rules.”

She'd snorted and said something flip that she can't remember now. Hadn't sat on his desk since. But … she hadn't known how hot it was going to be, then.

How she'd burn, and beg. How his mouth would drop open, and the colour of his eyes would change, cornflower blue to pure fire in a long, breathless instant.

How she'd drink that in, and slide across a little more to prop her boots on his chair, either side of his hips. How she'd use that awestruck gape as pure fuel to do what she needed to next.

“I had another suggestion.”

Don't make me spell it out, don't make me spell it out, don't make me spell it out, chants the part of her that's not ready to be completely shameless. (Clearly, a different part to the impulse that locked his goddamn office door.) Monroe doesn't know about that, she scolds herself, then wonders if he can read her mind. She could really do with some unspoken communication right now.

I want you to touch me, Charlie thinks, then holds her breath.

Monroe's hand lands on her boot, then slides up the wrap around her ankle, just resting for a moment as if gentling her to his touch. Then he starts to tug idly at the laces on her left boot. He eases that foot out, then starts on the other before he says a single word.

“Is this about last night?”

“Yep.”

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“But we're going to --”

Her second boot clunks to the floor, and she leans forward to grab his hands, bringing them to the buttons of her uniform shirt. “What do you think?”

Monroe is four buttons down before he manages to speak.

“I think this a very nice bra, Charlotte. Sadly, I'm gonna need to take it off with my teeth.”

She wants to ask him what his hands are going to be doing, but then he unhooks the closure at her waist and sits back to admire the view. “Matching,” he purrs, and holds her gaze as he slides his hand inside the garnet coloured fabric guarding her sodden folds.

“Poor baby.  These'll have to go too.  They're all wet."

Charlie can only murmur her assent as her eyes slip shut: he's playing with her ridiculously slippery clit, and she's about two seconds from coming all over his fingers. How had she failed to notice she'd worn her fanciest underwear this morning? Clearly, she'd been on this train a while.

Well, blow the fucking whistle baby, she gasps as the feeling takes her.  This here's a runaway train, Matheson and Monroe style.  Full steam ahead, maximum stupid.

(And this was just the first stop.)

 


	2. Chapter 2

It's possible she may have underestimated Monroe. Probable, Charlie realises, given how hard she'd been working to hate the man. She'd managed to miss a very important fact.

He wasn't _just_ sexy as hell, or the most virile individual she'd ever met. Sebastian Monroe, general, psychopath, whatever the hell else he was, had a remarkable, hidden skill set: he'd barely touched her and still managed to give her the quickest, most intense orgasm of her life. She still has her panties on, for god's sake.

And Monroe – fuck. Monroe was licking his fingers clean, eyes closed as he savoured the flavour. Charlie goggles, then blushes scarlet when his eyes open on a long, satisfied sigh.

“Mmm. Sweet and spicy all at once. I should have known.”

Which raises even more questions. She's curious about when this started for him, but he's guiding her back onto his desk now, burying his face between her breasts and _licking_ at the lace, even while he tugs her panties down her legs. And then he's kneeling and she may have forgotten how to breathe, because he's nuzzling at her mound and – oh God.

Her back arches off the desk as he eases her swollen pussy lips apart with the tip of his tongue. He's lapping gently, careful not to abrade her too much, but she's so sensitised from her orgasm it verges on torture.

“Please, Monroe, please …”

He chuckles, the brush of his beard and the vibration triggering a secondary flood that she can feel him chasing with his tongue. Then he lifts his head to grin up at her incredulous face. “Don't worry, Charlotte. Just having a little taste. Not gonna make you come again – yet.”

He straightens up, then unbuckles his belt before yanking at the fastening on his uniform pants. The look on his face makes her shiver even before he extracts his cock to give it a slow, ostentatious stroke. “This time, you have to earn it.”

Indignation flares, then fades into something more honest. He's huge and somehow beautiful and she _wants_ and why the _hell_ is he pushing her hands away right now?

“I like your enthusiasm, lieutenant, but right now I'm going to fuck you. Right here on this desk,” he growls, and _help_. General Asshole is back, and she really shouldn't like it so much.

Monroe spins her around, stepping in behind her until she can feel him rising against the small of her back, so hot and hard he makes her pussy clench with jealousy and she needs, she needs but … _oh_. He's bending her forward, an inexorable hand between her shoulders urging her face-down into the desk, a booted foot urging her legs apart, then wider. When she's fully prone, he clucks with satisfaction, then reaches underneath her to drag the cups of her bra down and pinch her nipples into agonising prominence.

Charlie shudders under his hands, mouth working helplessly as she fights the urge to beg.

“Now there's a good girl, all spread out for me,” he rasps, and maybe it's how helpless she feels like this, or the liberation from years of pretense. Or maybe it's something deeper and more heady that she'll examine later – all she knows is the answer is automatic, and heartfelt.

“Yes, sir,” she moans breathlessly, and dammit, she would have saluted if it had been even vaguely possible. The words have never crossed her lips before, superior or not, and now she knows they never will.

Except when they do this.

His hands glide down her back as if taking possession of every square inch of skin, every bit the master and commander right up until he leans over to kiss his adoration along the shell of her ear. Just as she's turning to mush with how sweet he can be, he wraps her hair around his fist and demands her attention with a sharp tug.

“You ready for me, soldier?”

Given she would have gutted anyone else who tried that with her, Charlie is surprised by just how ready she is for him. Aroused beyond words, she finds, and where the two of them were concerned, actions always spoke louder than words anyway. So she puts three years of frustrated longing into her groan, and lifts her ass in shameless invitation.

Monroe curses in delighted response, exploring the twin globes with ravenous hands, lifting and separating and sliding between to where her inner thighs are freshly slicked with new desire.

“You need me, baby? Really want this?”

Charlie turns around for a moment to catch the doubt on his face, the naked honesty that tells her she isn't the only one who has struggled with this forbidden attraction. He's ridiculously loyal to her uncle, after all, and sometimes she's caught glimpses of what their ugly past does to him. All those deaths she's laid at his feet, for want of the more complicated truth. They'll never be easy, but Charlie won't let him doubt this.

“Yes, Bass. Really. For – a while now.”

He raises an eyebrow at that but neither of them are in the mood for explanations. The fact that she called him Bass is proof enough – she's been so careful not to slip, before now.

“Say it again,” he growls, gliding his cock up and down her cleft in a maddening, persuasive tease.

“Bass. Bass – ” her voice catches in her throat as he pushes into the wet cavern beyond her pussy lips. Then stops.

“General fucking asshole Sebastian Monroe! Please!”

“Well, that wasn't very nice, was it. Insubordinate brat,” he purrs, and snaps his hips hard.

Charlie's feet leave the floor and she finds herself suspended on his cock, her only anchor points his hands on her hips and her own white-knuckled grip on the edge of his desk. She panics for a moment when he pulls back, but his hands have her steady, and he soon plunges home.

Again and again, so hard her entire body will ache with it. She's helpless, entirely at his mercy, and there's nothing for it but to let him fuck her, her mouth working wordlessly as her brain relinquishes every last vestige of control. She's never been –

She'll never be -

This. Just this. More. Her entire world narrowed to the woodgrain under her face and the massively hard cock slamming into her from behind, liquifying her muscles and forcing her body to surrender to bliss without end, pleasure so profound there's no single locus for it, just a series of giant waves that roll her along the sea floor without ever casting her up on the shore.

“Oh god, please, oh god, please, oh god …”

Her wail echoes around the room as she shakes and shudders in his hands, and there's something soothing, sweet words she can't process while her whole body is convulsing around him and then he's shouting and she can feel him, deep inside her, filling her, warmth and wetness and she's coming, and he's folded over her, mumbling into her hair as he comes, long, sustained spurts and she's never wanted that inside her, never before, but this time, this man, oh god, again, she's going again because there's something so …

Right about this, Charlie blinks as her brain comes online once more. That's what her poor, blissed-out mind had been trying to tell her. She'd done things, and felt things, she had never thought herself capable of, and somehow, they were all tied up with him.

The man she'd spent so many years trying to hate.

And maybe it was just the heat of passion, or the fact that Monroe was so goddamn _good_ at this. It might just be sex, just another people skill, like the way he could be charming as all hell when he wanted to be, her brain shrilled, good sense tried to reassert itself.

But it's a lone voice among one hundred billion happy neurones, and at least a good few million of those are very, very insistent.

Bass. It's always been Bass. That's why you fought so hard, they're whispering. That's why Miles was so weird about it. Somehow, he knew.

Charlie considers the possibility that this weird feeling is merely Bass fucking her brains out, and it's certainly not unlikely, but she's a tactician. Has to consider all the possibilities.

And maybe she has to trust a little, too. Trust herself, Charlie thinks as she lets Bass gather her into his arms, and collapse back into his giant chair once more. She curls against his sweaty chest and just breathes him in, her entire body relaxing into the spaces around his.

It feels right, she's thinking as her mind starts to drift. Maybe it wasn't a runaway train after all. Maybe this was where she needed to go, and everything else was just a detour. She turns her lips into his chest and mouths the syllables into his skin.

“Sebastian Monroe. Bass.”

His arms tighten around her and his chest rumbles with something she's too sleepy to catch, her brain firing just enough for one last wave of feeling: home. This is home. He is home.

*

“Lieutenant Matheson. General Monroe requests your presence in his office as soon as possible,” the messenger stammers, refusing to look her in the face.

Charlie gives him a coin, and pretends not to notice his scarlet cheeks. The gossip doesn't bother her, even though people seem to think it should. After all, at least it's true now – they'd been calling her Monroe's Hellcat long before she actually was.

In body, at least, Charlie smirks.

“Thank you, Tom. Was it anything specific?”

Because her new boots really couldn't wait another second, and finding her size in a sea of giant feet was a pain the ass.

“Uh – I think some big wig came in. Rumour is – from California.”

Ah. So not just a booty call.

“Okay then. Don't suppose you could pop over to Ruthven's and see if they have my boots yet? Size seven.”

She sends the boy on his way with another coin and heads back to the State House. The place is abuzz, and by the time she's ready to knock on Blanchard's door, Charlie has confirmed that Fitch had sent his chief of police, and three other officials, as a genuine, empowered delegation.

Her assets didn't know exactly why, but she wasn't expecting it to be with hostile intent. No one on the continent would be stupid enough to give General Monroe any sort of warning if they planned to make war.

Even so, the invitation comes as a surprise.

“They want you to do _what_?”

Monroe is beaming, the good whiskey already well tapped to toast the new friendship.

“Major Halliday, my aide-de-camp Lieutenant Matheson. She of the intemperate mouth.”

Charlie makes a silent, smiling vow to exact vengeance for that tonight, then grimaces her apologies at the envoy. “Forgive my surprise. We're delighted California wants to open the border, of course. I was just a little surprised that General Monroe should be the first on your invite list.”

Make Blanchard go, she thinks vehemently. Or Devereaux. Just not Bass. Not now.

“President Fitch has a lot of respect for the General. He believes his work in securing the eastern side of the continent was greatly undervalued. And your uncle's contribution as well, of course.”

Charlie smiles politely, all the while thinking how disturbing that is.

“The invitation extends to yourself, of course.”

Because even fucking California knew who Bass was sleeping with, it seemed. Weird that they were willing to overlook the fact she had assembled the best intelligence operation on the continent, but at least now she wouldn't have to admit she hated the idea of Bass leaving.

“How nice,” Charlie manages and the envoy grins in return.

“The President wanted to be the first to pass on his congratulations.”

“Huh?” Because eloquence wasn't a thing.

“At your engagement. He's hoping you might accept a house in the capital as a wedding gift. Ambassadors wives do so much entertaining.”

Charlie turns wordlessly to Bass.

“Uh – Major. Your intelligence seems to be wrong. Lieutenant Matheson and I – ah. I haven't proposed.”

“Oh. We understood … I'm so sorry.”

The poor man is so flustered Charlie wants to tell him he's not entirely wrong – they _have_ been fucking like bunnies for nearly four months now, after all. She refrains because Blanchard is already laughing so hard she wouldn't want to give him a stroke. Instead, she focuses on the other part of the puzzle.

“Uh – Ambassador?”

Blanchard sits up straighter in his chair to nod regally.

“Yup. California wanted an Ambassador, Monroe was right there, soI asked and he accepted. So pack your fucking bags Charlie girl.” Then he cackles raucously. “And if you happen to find a ring during all that packing, pretend you didn't.”

“For Christ's sake!” Monroe explodes at his President. Then turns to her, and drops to one knee.

Holy. Fuck.

“Charlotte. I've been trying to do this for weeks now, but could never find the right moment. And now these morons have screwed it all up. But there's nothing more I want in this world than to be able to tell everyone exactly who you are to me, and how we fit. So --” he scrabbles in his pocket, and the little black box that emerges sets her heart pounding even faster.

“Will you marry me?”

She's too stunned to say a single word. Except …

“What about the Ambassador thing? Are you going to do that?”

“Not if you don't want me to. If you need to be here, I need to be here,” Bass vows.

It doesn't even come as a surprise, she realises. She and Monroe were partners long before she realised she wanted him, let alone loved him. They'd been a team even longer than that.

“Nope. I mean – yes,” Charlie splutters. “I don't need to be here, and yes, I'll marry you. And go whereever.”

Bass springs up from bent knee with the agility of a man half his age, and is herding her up against Blanchard's desk to celebrate when they both remember they aren't alone. He rests his forehead against hers for a long moment to regain his composure, then steps away.

“Ah. Major Halliday. Turns out your intelligence was better than I thought. My fiance and I are overwhelmed at the President's generosity, and will make our way to California as soon as we can organise it.”

“After the wedding,” Blanchard points out. “Otherwise Miles will gut me.”

“More like my Mom,” Charlie snorts. “If Miles is going to go after anyone, it'll be Bass.”

“Amen to fucking that,” Monroe says ruefully, then shrugs. They'd already braved her uncle's wrath more than once and even after Charlie accused him of having somehow known, he'd was still lukewarm on their relationship. “You know what's he's going to say.”

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Charlie retorts. “So how soon can we pull off this wedding?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Mom will want kill you more than normal.”

“Next week.”

Charlie considers that. Organising a wedding can't be that different to planning a campaign, surely. “Doable.”

(The wedding is a disaster, but the day is perfect anyway.)

*

Ambassador and Mrs Monroe are farewelled by family, friends, and the President of Texas himself.

Charlie has never been more relieved to leave town. Blanchard has been full of I-told-you-so, her Mom is still pissed she and Bass had disappeared halfway through their wedding reception, and Miles was just plain grumpy.

“He wants to come too,” Bass grins. “Your mom won't let him, and I told him point blank he wasn't coming on my fucking honeymoon.”

“Oh – your honeymoon is it?” Charlie taunts, stretching up from her position astride Bass to recover the handcuffs from the overhead rack. “And here was me thinking it was our honeymoon,” she sighs, rolling her hips to deepen the angle of penetration.

“Oh, fuck yes. Our honeymoon, baby. Feels so good.” His eyes slide shut and he braces on the bed frame as she lifts herself high then slams down with a luxurious shudder. He's already starting to jerk when she snicks the cuffs into place around his wrist, and eases herself off him.

“What the --”

His cock jerks and spurts into mid-air, making Charlie momentarily sad for the loss. Oh well. It's not like she can get any more pregnant. And besides. She has plans.

“It's a long, long trip to San Diego. We wouldn't want to run out things to do,” she coos, then crosses to the suitcase open on the luggage rack opposite their bed. “I wonder what's in here?”

President Blanchard, it turned out, was a very good person to know if you wanted to track down certain exotic goods. He knew everyone that had ever run a sex shop or brothel in the last 25 years, and Charlie was happy to reap the fruits of that.

Even when she wasn't quite sure what one did with this like these, she had to admit. They were pretty, but she had a feeling the fat, glossy beads were for something other than just decoration.

“Jesus Christ, Charlie, are they –?”

“No idea,” she grins at her awestruck husband, “but I we've got four hours until dinner to figure it out.”

They miss dinner, in the end. Miss the breakfast sitting, too, gobbling madly from the trays pushed through the slot in the door to their compartment, then losing track of the need to eat after a single spill of jam turns into an erotic exploration.

They'll get to the dining car eventually, Charlie promises herself. Apparently the train also has a fully stocked bar and even a cute little library car. She'll inspect them all, eventually, but until then, they've got a wide double bunk, a comfy seat by the window, and that ever-changing view. The steady clack of the wheels is soothing, she finds, and the feeling of moving forwards, forging into the unknown – there's a quiet anticipation building for this next stage of her life.

And when Bass blows in, ruddy-cheeked from sitting up front with the driver, or smug from beating the boys in the back carriage at cards, she feels something else. Her blood, starting to sing. Her world, narrowing to him. Somewhere, there's a whistle blowing, and she's back on her favourite train, stoked high, burning hot.

(Next stop: stupendous.)

_fin_

 


End file.
